“Danny’s got a great shot, and it ended up getting by the goalie,” McNally said. “That gave us a nice cushion so it was a big goal.”

Princeton’s Kevin Mills cut the deficit to 4-3 under a minute later with an unassisted score, but Michalek held off the Tigers’ push as the game wound down.

The goalie made a diving save on a Hagel shot with five minutes left, then stopped the Tigers’ Andrew Ammon in the final minute to give Harvard the win.

“They brought everything in the final few minutes,” Everson said. “But Steve made some really big saves there at the end.”

It was a critical victory for the Crimson, which held on despite being outshot, 34-26.

The team now has a 20-day break before resuming play again at North Dakota on December 30.At this point last season, the squad was just 2-8-0.

Now it is tied for third in the ECAC, thanks in part to the recent improvement of the freshman goalie Michalek, who was a sixth-round pick of the Minnesota Wild in this year’s NHL draft.

“Steve played unbelievably,” McNally said. “He’s basically the reason we were able to hold on in the end. He made some great saves and he really held them off for us.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.